Today is the first day I feel almost ready to relax and enjoy Christmas. The gifts are all purchased, the decorations are up, and the cookies are baked. The dusting and sweeping may just wait until next year.
I thought I would share some of our recent activities. First the tree. Our tree doesn’t have a theme. All of the decorations are either home made or were given to us as gifts. The kids hang the ornaments themselves, in a way that would give Martha Stewart nightmares, but I am fine with it just as it is. Which either makes me really relaxed or just too darn lazy to fix it. Some branches have clusters of ornaments all clumped together, while other parts of the tree are nearly bare.
We lived in Alaska for 5 years and we still have family there so there are a lot of Alaskan themed ornaments.
The star at the top is made from aluminum foil. My husband made it our first Christmas together. It was all we could afford at the time. Now it is priceless.
She’s always in the middle of everything. . .
The Christmas Village on top of the piano. Anyone who knows me, knows I don’t like a lot of stuff sitting around except for maybe pictures! I think it stems from all of the dusting I had to do as a kid. No knick-knacks! But a few years ago my mom bought my daughter this little lighted up Christmas house. So now I let the kids pick out a new building every year to add to the collection. They love this village to much that last year they didn’t let me take it down until April.
Baking with kids is very, very messy. It requires a lot of patience. I really have to set aside an entire day to devote to this, which isn’t always easy. But in the end, the results are worth it. I remember how much fun it was to help make cookies when I was a kid and I really want my kids to have the same wonderful memories. But I gotta tell you, it’s a lot of pressure! This year I was really tempted to buy pre-made dough but I somehow managed to find the time/patience/courage to make everything from scratch. The gingerbread house is from a kit (it’s the only way to go!).
